In all honestly, they could have continued to play under the recently-expired system while they hammered out a deal. However, this is the league's way of saying "look dammit, we're serious". Their hope is that eventually the rookies and 4th-liners of the league run out of money and get scared and start pressuring the well-to-do's in their union to buckle.

However, they're simply asking for too much this time. Last lockout, they got exactly what they wanted (see my long-winded post elsewhere in this thread). And now, the system they wanted oh so badly last time is suddenly not good enough.

Owners are all rich as fuck. Players generally don't have anywhere near that financial security. It hurts them both in the short terms, but the players feel it a lot more than a billionaire does.

You gotta remember that most players are probably on minimum salaries and contracts. They make up the majority of the player unions and they will be the ones that buckle. Or how about all those rookies who aren't going to play at all and are essentially unemployed now?

Actually I believe they will still get the money from their TV deals. I heard this somewhere recently, but can't find anything to say for sure one way or the other. Perhaps someone with better research/Googling skills than me may have more luck.

Anyway, if true, that will provide some income to the owners while the players get none. Also, these owners are independently wealthy. They will survive just fine for a year without hockey, just like last time. Eventually, all but the highest paid players will run into financial issues.

The owners still receive revenue from NBC during the lockout and the reason that they aren't playing while the new CBA is being hammered out is that the players could just wait and strike right before the playoffs, where hockey teams gain the most revenue.

Last time I checked, not wanting to lose ten percent of what you usually make isn't asking for a "better" share. It's just asking not to change. I'd be pretty pissed my employer wanted to slash my paycheck that much, especially if the company was making more money. How are the players the bad guys here?

A few years back, the owners were paying through the roof to acquire the best players in the league, hoping beyond hope that paying a ridiculous salary to one player would result in a playoff appearance so that they could eventually break even and turn a profit.

This led to many teams going bankrupt (being as 16 of the 30 teams make the playoffs, so you're looking at barely over a 50% chance that you can make it into the post-season).

So the owners (Board of Governors) locked out the players and would not allow them to play again until they agreed to a salary cap. The players' salary cap would be tied directly to league revenues. If the league made more money, the pool of available money for player salaries would increase.

To counter the salary cap, they also instituted a "salary floor" so that you couldn't have owners putting piss-poor teams together hoping to make a small profit off of little investment. This helped lure some of the more talented players into the "small market" teams.

Also, they instituted revenue sharing, where the ten highest-grossing teams would share a percentage of their profits with the ten lowest-grossing teams, in an effort of leveling the playing field.

This time around, the same system that the owners put in place to "save hockey" is now being called "broken", and they claim that the only way to fix it is to lower the percentage of revenues that are appointed for player salaries. This is all in spite of the fact that the league has been making record revenues since the recently-expired Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) between the Board of Governors and the Player's Union (NHLPA). Also, the highest-grossing teams are wanting to decrease the amount they have to give out to the poorer teams.

There is a huge difference between a "lockout" and a "strike". A lockout is when the business refuses to let the unionized (or "unionised" for the non-American English speakers) employees work. A strike is when the employees (in this case, the players) refuse to work because they feel they are being treated unfairly.

So during the last NHL lockout, it was because the players were unwilling to budge. This time around, it's because the owners want to keep more of their profits and pay less of what they make to the players.

Or, as some people call it - "Millionaires arguing with billionaires over how to share the money of their middle class fans".

Just wanted to add a bit for those interested on a few of the other contentious issues in this lockout/negotiation.

This is not a simple argument between players and ownership about salaries that is typical of other professional sports leagues. There are essentially 3 combating parties in this: the players, the 12 profitable teams, and the 18 unprofitable teams.

The real crux of the situation is this great divide, in the fact that a majority of teams are losing money in the current system. To help with this problem, there are a few possible solutions: A. reduce player salaries by a significant amount B. Increase revenue sharing from the minority profitable teams C. downsize the league, cutting out some of the most unprofitable teams.

None of these solutions, without proper balance, will ever make it out of negotiation. Obviously in the case of A, the players is not going to budge at this time. The real problems are in the case of B and C.

Expanding revenue sharing, to a system similar to the NFL would allow for much more stability in terms of league finances. It would allow a much easier break even for unsuccesfull teams, leaving only the most desolate markets unprofitable. However, the profitable teams would in no way readily agree to this for obvious reasons, without concessions in other areas. This is the real reason for the attacks on players percentage of revenues (57%). Profitable teams want to remain equally profitable, so all additional costs from revenue sharing are being shifted to the players, rather than owners.

The profitable ownerships obviously had no real motivation to act on the income disparity of the teams, except in the abstract (stable league and whatnot). This is in fact, the main reason for the lockout, with the 18 unprofitable teams voting in favor of a lockout simply to force revenue sharing change on the 12 profitable teams through forced loss of profits from the lockout. Except for selling their souls to the owners, the players had no possible move here, and were essentially ballast.

Because of Bettman's dedication to the 30 team league, there was also no real chance of downsizing the league. Cutting out the bottom few teams from the league and transitioning to a 26 or 28 team league could have been the bargaining chip needed to get the profitable ownership to buy in to expanded revenue sharing, but was not even on the table because of Bettman, even with the league directly involved in the management of several teams due to financial unsustainability (see Phoenix Coyotes for example). With fewer problem teams to support, revenue sharing becomes far more palatable, and the percent needed to be shared drops significantly. Of course, the players would also be opposed to this type of move as well, as less teams=less players plain and simple.

Thats just my 2 cents on the lockout. I am not refuting OP, just commenting further on the schism between ownership, and expanding on how the players really had no input on this lockout in particular.

This is full of great points. I definitely feel that the league should downsize, and I think 26 teams would be a good number. There are 2 teams in Florida, both of them failing, a team in Phoenix that is good and makes the playoffs every year that always has tons of empty seats, and those are just a couple examples.

The NHL grew too much and worse, into areas filled with people not interested in hockey. Meanwhile, there are a couple decent markets in the Northern US and Canada that would support a hockey team without one. The priority was placed on getting teams into traditional big market areas, without concern for the interest in hockey.

Also, as a side note response to the OP, the idea that the players shouldn't complain about their million dollar contracts is ridiculous. This argument is always made in any sports contract debate, and I don't understand it. Why is it okay for the billionaire owners to complain about losing a couple extra million, but not okay for the millionaire players to complain about losing a couple extra million?

They are all doing very well, and each side has plenty of money and are fighting for even more, yet somehow, people inevitably say how terrible the players are for doing this, but not the owners.

I agree with this, I was just having a conversation about how markets that aren't able to maintain an NHL franchise shouldn't have teams because they're destined for failure and bringing down the league's value. Quebec, Hamilton, Milwaukee, Seattle, and places in the northeastern U.S. would all be better options for franchises than Texas, Arizona, and Florida. The league shouldn't be forcing prospective buyers to keep the Coyotes in Arizona (sorry, Yotes fans but there just aren't enough of you).

Stars fan here so maybe I'm gonna be a bit biased, but throwing Texas into that list of "better options than".

The Stars are actually very popular around here. The problem is, their previous owner (Tom Hicks) made some horrible business decisions with the Rangers and FC Liverpool.

When he was going through bankruptcy court, the team had to slash its salary, so they weren't as productive as they were in the past. The problem was, during those years the Stars weren't making the playoffs (or were going "one and done" if they did make it), they had competition that they'd never had to deal with before:

The new Cowboys stadium

The Cowboys in general (always the biggest sports team in the area, all other teams vie for second place in the people's attention)

Hosting a Superbowl

The Mavericks winning an NBA Championship

The Rangers (another team previously owned by Hicks) not only making the playoffs for the first time in over a decade, but making it to two consecutive World Series appearaces

Hockey actually thrives in Texas (NHL in Dallas, AHL in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, and many other smaller leagues smattered around the state), it's just that people around here in Dallas could spend the same money on a ticket from 1998 through 2000 (when the Stars were in the "elite" status) to see a team struggling to score a goal, or they could go see the Mavs or Rangers play and actually win. Hence, all the empty seats over the past few years.

Those are all good points and your attendance wasn't too bad recently, other than this past year. Hell, it wasn't that long ago that Chicago was in the bottom 3rd in attendance. What you see is probably just a bias because you took a team from Minnesota to Texas and we all think that sucks.

Yeah, and I have plenty of friends in MN who feel the same. I feel bad for them.

Actually, I grew up in Louisiana and picked the North Stars as my favorite team when I was a kid because "they wore green". So when they ended up moving to Dallas, I was actually happy because then they were closer to me. Having me move to Dallas in 2001 just sealed the deal for me :)

yup - and the OP reflects the lack of knowledge combined with frustration so typical of the general public. outrage without understanding, which (ironically) might be the impetus the players need to back down.

Part of the reason that so many of the teams are not making money is that they dont have a built in base of hockey fans. The majority of the teams not making money are located in warm weather cities like Pheonix and Tampa Bay. Another reason for the financial problems is the salary cap. Before the cap very few teams (Detroit, Toronto, NY Rangers) were paying their team salary at or near what the cap number now is. Now all the teams are forced to have their team salary at the level that it is now. In doing so they are paying players more money then they would have gotten pre-cap. What needs to happen is for the league to shrink by 4-8 teams making the teams more competitive and produce a higher quality of play.

This is precisely why the players want to see a higher percentage of revenue sharing. You can't just throw a new sport into an area and expect it to take off - you need to grow the market.

Dallas lucked out because there's really nothing else to do around here except watch sports. We brought an NHL team into Dallas during the height of a Dallas Cowboys Superbowl dynasty, so everyone was already on a "sports high". It also didn't hurt that the team was good from pretty much the moment they got here.

Also, the Stars were smart and teamed up with Dr Pepper to open up a bajillion rinks around the Dallas/Fort Worth area (Dr Pepper Stars Centers), which not only helped give people (and especially kids) a place to play hockey, but they also have the team hold public practice at them (so people can meet the players).

The DPSC's each have two sheets of ice, so they also host the high school hockey teams. So not only was hockey "new" but it was "easily accessible" for everyone. With the team being here since 1993, most of those kids who played on DPSC rinks or joined newly-created high school teams are adults with jobs and money to spend at games.

It doesn't help, however, that the Stars are in the Pacific Division, and most of our games don't even start until after 9pm - so that kinda hurts the viewing numbers when you're stuck watching a game until midnight or 1am on a week night.

As I stated in another post, it's not that Dallas doesn't care about hockey, it's that most people who aren't "hockey first" like myself have other things they could spend their "sports dollar" on for the time being. This is why I'm so sick to my stomach about this lockout, because we finally have an owner with deep pockets and a love for the game, we're gutting a team that hasn't made the playoffs in four years (if we can call four years a "drought", you know we've got a good team), and now we can't watch it develop until they get this labor dispute sorted.

Now, if the Phoenixes and Tampa Bays of the league would have tackled the problem of getting hockey involved with the fans instead of trying to force the fans to get involved with hockey the say Dallas did it, we might have a completely different situation on our hands.

Yeah I'm going to step in and take this one. The owners are the ones that are causing the lockout, not the players. Under the agreement that expired on Spetember 15th, the players were guaranteed 57% of the HRR (hockey related revenue), but under the proposed deal from the Owners, they would only receive 47%, all while the owners reap in the benefits of the sport being at its highest surplus in the history of the sport. It is estimated that when it is all said and done, the players will be making 15-20% less than what they were under the older deal.

Think about your job... how would you feel about a 20% pay cut when you are the entire reason the organization is profiting so greatly?

I get that logic. But the issue I have with it is that they are making millions of dollars which anyone would do for a lot less. Yes, they are taking a big pay cut, but still making millions. If it was me, that would make it so I can not make rent or buy food.

I see both sides, and both are just acting stupid. Players need to stop complaining about making millions. Owners need to stop offering the contracts in the middle of negotiations that they want to remove.

well, for one, most of the players aren't mulitmillion contracts, for two, it is usually an issue caused by the owners not making any bank. just take the nba lockout last season as an outlier, because they got all pissed off about rich teams loading up while poor teams are basically scouting agencies. that is what a lockout should be about, but it isn't. the mlb should take a lesson from the nba, oh wait! teams went back to the old mo as soon as the season started up again.

From the players' perspective, they not only deserve the million-dollar contracts, they need them. Consider that very few of them will be able to play after the age of thirty. Most will have chronic health problems due to injuries incurred and may have difficulty working a normal job as a result. The pay they get during their professional sports careers is all they will likely make.

That doesn't explain why so few of them know how to manage their salaries, but there's still reasons for the very large paychecks.

We often think about the best players in the league who make multi-million dollar contracts when there's a labor dispute. However, for every superstar, there are dozens of players who will only play marginally for a few years. Those players are the ones who are most affected by these stoppages, and will soon be looking for a regular job in a few years.

Exactly. For instance, the MLB minimum salary is $480k. A player gets this amount yearly if they are on the roster for the season. They get a pro-rated amount if they are a sub from the minor league brought in to deal with injuries or test them out in the "the big show". If you consider that every MLB team has a handful of minor league teams under them, then most professional baseball players won't see the major leagues. Many of them will give up or get cut within the first few seasons and start a career somewhere else. For the ones that do make the majors... they might put in 3-5 years in the minors, play a few years in the majors, and then be shuffled off for some new, hot talent.

Life in the minors is very sketchy as you are subject to being traded, cut, or moved up/down a level more often than when you are in the majors. Many of the lowest-level players still have other jobs.

If you only play a few years in the majors, then you're talking about $1.5mil before your career is OVER. Sure, you can do something else, start a new career, whatever... but you spent YEARS practicing for the majors, years living life bouncing from team to team, city to city, ready to go join a new team at the drop of a hat and now you have $1.5mil to fund you for the next 40+ years of your life. If you're smart with your money, you never have to work again. If you want more than that, better find a new job.

If you make $1.5 million by age 30, don't work another day in your life, (and not factoring in investments) you have about $37,500 per year to live off of if you live off of if you ONLY live to 70.

$1.5 million may be a lot to the average Joe, but it doesn't mean living the rich life when you have to stretch it out for the rest of your life.

Yup, and for the most part, those players put their whole early-adult lives into training for their sport. Each and every one of these people was probably the best in their hometown growing up. (remember the star of your high school baseball team? Yeah, he didn't make it past college ball, let alone make it to the minors)

The system relies on these almost-great players to develop. The superstars are made better by having to best these other guys along their way. Throughout their whole lives they were told that they're the best at this sport, and then they have to give it up without any real support. Unless they get into coaching, they're going to have to make up for those years dedicated to their sport.

I would like our professional sports unions talk about these issues more often, and either create structures to help these guys out, or if they already do, publicize that. I know that the PFA (Professional Footballers Association in England) does a lot of these things. They have job training programs for players whose careers are cut short by injury or just don't make it.

It just comes to a point where you have to figure how much money you're willing to spend on entertainment. Not to mention gas, food, drinks, etc. It adds up and it seems to keep going up, while all I hear is record-breaking contracts for players. I don't know...

Yeah, exactly. You should just be happy with whatever crumbs "the man" is willing to give you from his pantry, whether that is an NHL owner giving his crumbs to a player or your company's owner giving his crumbs to you.

some what related: i recently seen a tweet by iman shumpert of the knicks that said something along the lines of "playing basketball in the nba is harder then some 9-5 out there" so of course i responded with "your job is playing a sport and working out. if that is considered a 9-5 you are grossly overpaid" . well he answered and wasnt too happy (sort of made an indirect racial comment that told me if its so easy then to go get good and get a check for it) a reasonable response i thought.. but anyway immediately i got bombarded by a bunch of ppl telling me i dont know how tough it is to be an athlete and they work so hard blah blah blah. im sticking to my guns though. playing a sport professionally, while yes may be demanding of your body and time and life, isnt particularly an impressive 9-5. an impressive 9-5 is someone who puts in more then 40 hr work weeks and makes a shitty salary and supports their spouse and children, not someone who makes millions of dollars throughout their careers for playing a sport

well, to be fair, your comment did pretty much dumb it down to the most base level it could be. Most 9-5's could be described as mashing fingers on a keyboard, for which most people would be grossly overpaid. If you receive a salary, not a wage, you're likely getting paid too much by some people's standards (notably retail and tech support wage slaves). Meanwhile those same retail and tech support wage slaves would be considered grossly overpaid by people who sew soccer balls.

There are plenty of redditors who complain about actually having to work because they ran out of stuff to look at on reddit. Because of this, I can easily agree with the original tweet.

To play in the NBA, or another major professional sport, you have to be among the best in the world in that skill. For the NBA there are 30 teams and each team has about 15 players so there are 450 players. Being among the top 450 people in the world in any profession is fairly impressive. Plus to start puts you in the top 150, give or take a few given really good sixth men. Players that aren't considered a sure thing are basically gambling on their future by focusing so much on their sport at an early age that if they fail they generally have no other skills. Even if they do make they have a small window of opportunity to earn salary as most players don't play much past thirty and that small window can be slammed shut during any given game pr workout due to injury. Why are his skills, that he has work incredibly hard to develop, less impressive than someone making a shitty salary?

He does have a point. I work an office job where people call in sick all the time because they are 'not feeling great'. When they are in the office they spend most of their time complaining and gossiping. They always have someone else to blame for the lack of productivity. That shit does not fly in the NBA. Can you imagine an NBA player saying "I'm going to skip the Friday game because I don't feel great, and I didn't make any 3-pointers this month because the trainer gave me the wrong color of Gatorade"

Since when is salary based on the good you do to society? It is based on the demand for your service and the supply for it. There are hundreds of thousands of doctors. There are only a couple hundred NBA players. Also, lots of people pay lots of money to watch the NBA players. This is just such a dumb comment.

It's all about the money you help generate. If 100k people paid for tickets to watch a few doctors perform their work, the doctors would be making tons of money. Welcome to capitalism. You must be new here.

it's actually not a strike; a strike is when the workers refuse to work because they are being treated unfairly. A lockout is when the owners refuse to let the workers work, which is what is happening here.

1) This is a lockout, not a strike. You're thinking of a strike. Very roughly speaking, a lockout is the opposite of a strike.

2) As it relates to professional sports strikes, if you don't demand to be paid what you are worth, you are a fool. Owners wouldn't just give them more money than they are worth, so why should they accept less?

It's not that players aren't happy with there money, the conflict is over the revenue split. Do players get the biggest piece of the pie, or do owners (who profit but don't but themselves physically at risk).

This is also an owner lockout. In this case they are the one's who decided to shut things down - not the players.

You provide a service to an employer. If you feel like you want a raise in income you ask for it or you look else where for it. In Pro sports you can't just look else where.

If you work for Goldman and feel that you aren't being paid enough, you can always go to Barclays. If you are a Pro athlete where do you go? To the lower levels of sport? You might find a gain in salary but your value as a player drops, your reputation drops. It's not something you can do with out it hurting you in the long term.

When a sport become more and more popular and owners make more and more money, they should then increase wages for those who provide specialty services. When they don't Pro athletes go on strike.

So while yes the player made $3 million last year, his owner made $450 million. If he's the star player, he should be given a raise. If star player signed a 3 year deal @ $3 million per year, he should wait until his contract is over to negotiate a higher salary.

i'll be holding my breathe that the billionaire franchise owners get more money for the worthless industry can start up again, and keep distracting everyone from our pathetic attempt at a society. everythings ok, everythings ok, everythings ok, everythings ok...I don't know even know sport this in reference to, but it doesn't matter. We are the sole super power, usurping the worlds resources at 25% it's annual production, and this is what we have?

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Since everyone else has already told you its a lockout and not a strike, I'm going to take the idea in your post. I don't care for the idea of "professional athletes should not want more money!" You have to put it in perspective. If you worked as an accountant for a Fortune 500 company, and you were making $100,000 a year. But at the same company, let's say they had other accountants making $200,000 and $600,000. If you could prove that you were just as productive and just as talented as those two accountants, you would argue for a raise. If they didn't give you one, you would be upset, and would probably slowly start to look for another job. Especially if that company was making billions of dollars annually.

After mingling with 1%ers as a retail working, community college attending 22 year old, I can tell you, no matter how comfortably they live, that number remaining in their bank account is always too small.

Just want to point out player's expectations of growth in the league in their projections is pretty much off base. They expect the doubling of league revenue to continue as it has over the past decade, which is fairly unrealistic considering market penetration, and health of the economy.

Players ought to take a hit on future revenue, of 8-10% to remain viable. Right now they've rejected that proposal by the league. The fact that players believe they are entitled to more than 50% (almost 60%) of the pie is bizarre to me.

They are not even that close, right now they are arguing over what exactly hockey related revenue is. Once they get that hammered out then can start to work on percentages.

And while I agree with you that at one point overall league revenue will stop growing the current (or I guess now the former) CBA accounted for this. The salary cap is based on League Revenue. If the NHL loses money the ceiling of the salary cap will drop. The players also put a percentage (i think around 10%) in Escrow in case the Salary Cap estimation is off. (The salary cap number is based on the previous seasons numbers) If they don't meet those expectations, the money in the escrow account will be forfeited by the players. Since the start of the current CBA the players have recovered 97% of the money in the escrow account because the league as a whole has been doing well.

In the proposals that the NHLPA has presented to the NHL they have been willing to give Salary Concessions, but not the almost 20% that the league is asking for. Especially because they are asking for 20% retroactively, reducing all current contracts by 20%.

As recently as the day of the CBA expiring the owners were signing players to the new contract, only to then hours later ask for a 20% reduction in the legally binding contract that they just signed.